September 16, 2014

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ESOS: are you in or out?

AND what do you do about it? By Deborah Cairns, Environmental Consultant, E4environment Ltd

energy-stock

ESOS: Large enterprises need to monitor 90% of their energy consumption over a 12-month period

ESOS has been in force for two months but do you know what it stands for, whether it applies to your organisation, what you have to do (if anything) and by when?  If you’ve answered “No” to any of these questions, you’re not alone.  We have been getting a lot of enquiries about this latest piece of Regulation so have put the attached Guide together for our users. Barbour EHS has a full briefing note on ESOS – click here to request a demo of the service.

The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme Regulations (ESOS) 2014 came into force on 17th July.  It applies to “Large Enterprises” – public bodies and SMEs are (mostly) exempt. “Large” is defined by the number of employees – 250+ – OR €50m+ turnover and €43m+ balance sheet (NOTE the use of the € sign rather than £ sign is correct – the thresholds are measured in Euros).  Importantly, SMEs may qualify if they are part of a larger qualifying Group, as per the CRC rules. Qualifying businesses have to

  • measure energy use (of at least 90% of total consumption) over a 12-month period;
  • identify costed opportunities where reductions in consumption can be achieved (there are certain ‘audit process’ requirements that have to be met at this stage); and
  • report these to the Environment Agency.
  • There are no obligations on qualifying companies to then implement any actions.

The Scheme has been “… designed to align, as far as is possible, with those of other schemes (eg. the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC).” – DECC Guide to ESOS June 2014.  However, the energy that has to be measured includes transport, buildings and industrial processes so some of the assessment processes currently used will support but not necessarily meet the full ESOS Assessment criteria – eg. if a company had four areas that accounted for 90% of their energy consumption and an ISO50001 Energy Management System only covered three of these, they would have to choose another route to address the fourth area. The Environment Agency Compliance Guidance document is due to be issued later this autumn.

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John Hill
John Hill
9 years ago

Just like every EU “initiative” it leaves me cold.
Seems like yet another attempt to ignore the rules EU has already agreed with “Member States”.
For instance, when G Brown opted out of the roads being measured in kilometres as “Much too costly”, seems the crats in euroland seem intent on pressing changes despite all agreed ones beforehand.
Note the decision to press the e sign. even when GB has the £!!
Seems a really irrelevant piece of legislation to me.
Not something to be worth publishing in a dedicated H&Safety publication I reckon!